When I turn on the computer after it being off for a couple of hours, it boots & everything runs well. Then after 2 or 3 hours of usage, the error crops in, keys start getting sticky and have to be held pressed for 5 seconds or more to get an alphabet typed. It gets worse in a short time & then finally the key board gets inactive. Reboot the computer and it says Keyboard is locked out - unlock the key. Sometimes Im lucky to be able to get the F1 key work by keeping it press for about a minute or so. I tried the suggestions I read on one of the older topics like disconnecting the keylock wires from the mobo etc but nothing worked. Then I started disconnecting hardware one by one & noticed that the problem gets solved when I disconnect the CD rom cable. But then reconnect the CD rom and keyboard doesnt work again. What freaks me is that why does this not occur when the computer is rebooted after a long period of being shut off. I use a P133 running at 150 Mhz. Everything was working well for over a year. Also cleaned heat sink & fan. All other programs work well with the mouse. I'd appreciate help. Been trying for a week.

Sounds like it may be a poor conection or you may simply need a new keyboard.You may want to try cleaning it or buying a new one.

It sounds to me like you have already isolated the problem to the cdrom drive. Heat related hardware problems are fairly common.

Although the problem seems to be related to the cd rom, I'd try another keyboard just to make sure. Your motherboard has a keyboard bios on it. It's not a chip in which heat is much of a problem. But still if another keyboard doesn't help, your problem is most certainly with that chip and probably heat related. It's a rectangular chip with about 20 pins on opposite sides. Often they're in sockets instead of being soldered directly to the board. They're also almost always generic. I've taken some off of 486 boards and used them on pentiums. I have no idea why it's related to the cd rom. Perhaps it's just that when things start breaking down the results can be unpredictable.

Thanks for the suggestions but it looks like this thing as just fixed itself. 2 days since it last occured. Earlier I did try another keyboard, but it was of no use. I thought it could be a motherboard problem so first I was going to try connecting the CD rom to IDE1 as a slave along with the HDD. But now since its working lets just leave it as it is. Tried looking for that keyboard bios chip but couldnt figure which one it could be. Its a Matsonic MS-5120 Main board.

I had assumed since you were running a 133 chip that you had an old board. Newer boards, including yours, have the keyboard bios/controller integrated with another chip, probably the main bios. So replacing that on your board is not an option. If you can find a bios upgrade you might try that. Sorry for the inaccurate info.

New findings. The problem was not fixed. It only had not appeared because of the loose Cd-Rom IDE connector. But what had now begin to happen was that the computer began to hang along with the keyboard after prolonged usage. Restarting would not do much good, although leaving it on without any activity would solve the hanging for half a minute or so. Heat related ? Yes, but what was heating up? I started by setting the CPU speed back to 133Mhz from its overclocked 150Mhz. This to some extent delayed the occurance. When the problem occured again I began feeling all the chips on the mobo with my index finger. Then I moved on to the sound card. The main chip on the sound card seemed relatively warm even though I wasnt using any audio functions. I cooled it down with my fingers as heatsinks. & whoa-la the keyboard started working again. I let it heat up & cool down several times to make sure it wasnt a coincidence. It wasn't. I tried just one more thing. Disconnected the audio connector from Cd rom to Sound card. That I thought did the trick. Until 5 minutes ago when I noticed a little jerky movement of the mouse. I touched the chip & it was hot. But the computer hasnt completely hung ever since that audio connector was disconnected. However when the keys or mouse dont respond well, the finger heat sink trick on that chip solves it. But thats only about an hour since. THis is a Yamaha OPL3-SAx sound card which I had borrowed from a friend. Its only now that I realise that I had installed it only a couple of days before the first occurance of the problem. He had given it to me for free .. now Ive got to give it back. Any comments? I hope I made sense.